The Distinguished Service Order (DSO) is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other parts of the Commonwealth, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat. Since 1993 all ranks have been eligible.

The British South Africa Company was established following the amalgamation of Cecil Rhodes' Central Search Association and the London-based Exploring Company Ltd which had originally competed to exploit the expected mineral wealth of Mashonaland but united because of common economic interests and to secure British government backing. The company received a Royal Charter in 1889 modelled on that of the British East India Company. Its first directors included the Duke of Abercorn, Rhodes himself and the South African financier Alfred Beit. Rhodes hoped BSAC would promote colonisation and economic exploitation across much of south-central Africa, as part of the "Scramble for Africa". However, his main focus was south of the Zambezi, in Mashonaland and the coastal areas to its east, from which he believed the Portuguese could be removed by payment or force, and in the Transvaal, which he hoped would return to British control.

The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of British Armed Forces. As of 2018, the British Army comprises just over 81,500 trained regular (full-time) personnel and just over 27,000 trained reserve (part-time) personnel.

The Dakota are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government in North America. They compose two of the three main subcultures of the Sioux people, and are typically divided into the Eastern Dakota and the Western Dakota.

An Indian reservation is a legal designation for an area of land managed by a federally recognized Native American tribe under the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs rather than the state governments of the United States in which they are physically located. Each of the 326 Indian reservations in the United States is associated with a particular Native American nation. Not all of the country's 567 recognized tribes have a reservation—some tribes have more than one reservation, while some share reservations. In addition, because of past land allotments, leading to some sales to non–Native Americans, some reservations are severely fragmented, with each piece of tribal, individual, and privately held land being a separate enclave. This jumble of private and public real estate creates significant administrative, political, and legal difficulties.

Native Americans, also known as American Indians, Indigenous Americans and other terms, are the indigenous peoples of the United States, except Hawaii. There are over 500 federally recognized tribes within the US, about half of which are associated with Indian reservations. The term "American Indian" excludes Native Hawaiians and some Alaska Natives, while Native Americans are American Indians, plus Alaska Natives of all ethnicities. Native Hawaiians are not counted as Native Americans by the US Census, instead being included in the Census grouping of "Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander".

Burnham distinguished himself in several battles in Rhodesia and South Africa and became Chief of Scouts. Despite his U.S. citizenship, his military title was British and his rank of major was formally given to him by King Edward VII. In special recognition of Burnham's heroism, the King invested him into the Companions of the Distinguished Service Order, giving Burnham the highest military honors earned by any American in the Second Boer War. He had become friends with Baden-Powell during the Second Matabele War in Rhodesia, teaching him outdoor skills and inspiring what would later become known as Scouting. Burnham returned to the United States, where he became involved in national defense efforts, business, oil, conservation, and the Boy Scouts of America (BSA).

Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910.

The Second Boer War was fought between the British Empire and two Boer states, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State, over the Empire's influence in South Africa. It is also known variously as the Boer War, Anglo-Boer War, or South African War. Initial Boer attacks were successful, and although British reinforcements later reversed these, the war continued for years with Boer guerrilla warfare, until harsh British counter-measures brought them to terms.

Lieutenant-General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, was a British Army officer, writer, founder and first Chief Scout of the world-wide Boy Scout Movement, and founder, with his sister Agnes, of the world-wide Girl Guide / Girl Scout Movement. Baden-Powell authored the first editions of the seminal work Scouting for Boys, which was an inspiration for the Scout Movement.

During World War I, Burnham was selected as an officer and recruited volunteers for a U.S. Army division similar to the Rough Riders, which Theodore Roosevelt intended to lead into France. For political reasons, the unit was disbanded without seeing action. After the war, Burnham and his business partner John Hays Hammond formed the Burnham Exploration Company; they became wealthy from oil discovered in California. Burnham joined several new wilderness conservation organizations, including the California State Parks Commission. In the 1930s, he worked with the BSA to save the big horn sheep from extinction. This effort led to the creation of the Kofa and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuges in Arizona. He earned the BSA's highest honor, the Silver Buffalo Award, in 1936, and remained active in the organization at both the regional and national level until his death in 1947. To symbolise the friendship between Burnham and Baden-Powell, the mountain beside Mount Baden-Powell in California was formally named Mount Burnham in 1951.

The Rough Riders was a nickname given to the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry, one of three such regiments raised in 1898 for the Spanish–American War and the only one to see action. The United States Army was small and understaffed in comparison to its status during the American Civil War roughly thirty years prior. As a measure towards rectifying this situation President William McKinley called upon 125,000 volunteers to assist in the war efforts. The regiment was also called "Wood's Weary Walkers" in honor of its first commander, Colonel Leonard Wood. This nickname served to acknowledge that despite being a cavalry unit they ended up fighting on foot as infantry.

Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was an American statesman, conservationist and writer who served as the 26th president of the United States from 1901 to 1909. He previously served as the 25th vice president of the United States from March to September 1901 and as the 33rd governor of New York from 1899 to 1900. As a leader of the Republican Party during this time, he became a driving force for the Progressive Era in the United States in the early 20th century. His face is depicted on Mount Rushmore, alongside those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln. In polls of historians and political scientists, Roosevelt is generally ranked as one of the five best presidents.

John Hays Hammond was a mining engineer, diplomat, and philanthropist. Known as the man with the Midas touch, he amassed a sizable fortune before the age of 40. An early advocate of deep mining, Hammond was given complete charge of Cecil Rhodes' mines in South Africa and made each undertaking a financial success. But after the dismal failure of the Jameson Raid, Hammond, along with the other leaders of the Johannesburg Reform Committee, was arrested and subsequently sentenced to death. The Reform Committee leaders were released after paying large fines, but like many of the leaders, Hammond left Africa for good. He returned to the United States, became a close friend of President William Howard Taft, and was appointed a special United States Ambassador. At the same time, he continued to develop mines in Mexico and California and, in 1923, he made another fortune while drilling for oil with the Burnham Exploration Company. His son, John Hays Hammond, Jr., patented over 400 inventions, and is widely regarded as the father of radio control.

Early life

Burnham was born on May 11, 1861, on a Dakota SiouxIndian reservation in Minnesota, to a missionary family living near the small pioneer town of Tivoli (now gone), about 20 miles (32km) from Mankato.[5] His father, the Reverend Edwin Otway Burnham, was a Presbyterian minister educated and ordained in New York; he was born in Ghent, Kentucky.[6][7][n 1] His mother Rebecca Russell Burnham had spent most of her childhood in Iowa, having emigrated with her family from Westminster, England at the age of three.[11][12] In the Dakota War of 1862, Chief Little Crow and his Sioux warriors attacked the nearby town New Ulm, Minnesota; Burnham's father was in Mankato buying ammunition at the time, so when Burnham's mother saw Sioux approaching her cabin dressed in war paint, she knew she had to leave and could never escape carrying her baby. She hid Frederick in a basket of green corn husks in a corn field and fled for her life. Once the Sioux attack had been repulsed, she returned to find their house burned down, but the baby Frederick was safe, fast asleep in the basket with the corn husks.[13][5]

Minnesota is a state in the Upper Midwest and northern regions of the United States. Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd U.S. state on May 11, 1858, created from the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory. The state has a large number of lakes, and is known by the slogan the "Land of 10,000 Lakes". Its official motto is L'Étoile du Nord.

A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to proselytize or perform ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin missionem, meaning "act of sending" or mittere, meaning "to send". The word was used in light of its biblical usage; in the Latin translation of the Bible, Christ uses the word when sending the disciples to preach The gospel in his name. The term is most commonly used for Christian missions, but can be used for any creed or ideology.

Rev Edwin Otway Burnham was a Congregational minister and missionary.

The young Burnham attended schools in Iowa. There he met Blanche Blick, whom he later married. [14] The Burnham family moved from Minnesota to Los Angeles, California in 1870, in search of easier living conditions soon after Edwin was seriously injured in an accident while rebuilding the family homestead. Two years later, Edwin died, leaving the family destitute. Burnham's mother and 3-year-old younger brother Howard returned to Iowa to live with her parents; the 12-year-old Burnham remained in California alone to repay his family's debts and ultimately make his own way.[15][16]

For the next few years, Burnham worked as a mounted messenger for the Western Union Telegraph Company in California and Arizona Territory.[17] On one occasion his horse was stolen from him by Tiburcio Vásquez, a famous Californio bandit.[18] At 14, he began his life as a scout and Indian tracker in the Apache Wars, during which he took part in the United States Army expedition to find and capture or kill the Apache chief Geronimo.[19][20] In Prescott, Arizona, he met an old scout named Lee who served under General George Crook.[21] Lee taught Burnham how to track Apache by detecting the odor of burning mescal, a species of aloe they often cooked and ate. With careful study of the local air currents and canyons, trackers could follow the odor to Apache hiding places from as far away as 6 miles (9.7km). During the Apache uprisings, the young Burnham also learned much from Al Sieber, the Chief of Scouts, and his assistant Archie McIntosh, who had been Chief of Scouts in Crook's last two campaigns.[22] Burnham learned much about scouting from these Indian trackers, who were advanced in age and fading from the frontier, including the vital lesson that "it is imperative that a scout should know the history, tradition, religion, social customs, and superstitions of whatever country or people he is called on to work in or among."[23] But the scout who was to have perhaps the greatest influence on Burnham during his formative years was a man named Holmes.[19]

The six-shooter Burnham purchased as a teenager in Prescott, Arizona, which he kept all his life and later used in Rhodesia, East Africa and Mexico

Holmes had served under Kit Carson and John C. Fremont, but he was old and physically impaired when he met Burnham.[24] He had lost all of his family in the Indian wars and before he died he wanted to impart his knowledge of the frontier to the young Burnham. The two men traveled throughout the American Southwest and northern Mexico, and Holmes taught him many scouting skills, such as how to track a trail, how to double and cover one's own trail, how to properly ascend and descend precipices, and how to tell the time at night. Burnham also learned survival skills from Holmes, such as where to find water in the desert, how to protect himself from snakes, and what to do in case of forest fires or floods. A stickler for details, Holmes impressed on him that even in the simplest things, such as braiding a rope, tying a knot, or putting on or taking off a saddle, there is a right way and a wrong way. The two men earned a living by hunting and prospecting.[19] Burnham also worked as a cowboy, a guard for the mines, a guide, and a scout during these years.[25]

In Globe, Arizona, Burnham unwittingly joined the losing side of the Pleasant Valley War before mass killing started, and only narrowly escaped death.[26] He had no stake in the feud, but he was drawn into the conflict by his association with the Gordon family.[27][n 2] Once the killing started, he felt he had to join a faction as a hired gun, although it put him on the wrong side of the law.[29] In between raids and forays, he practiced incessantly with his pistol; he learned to shoot using either hand and from the back of a galloping horse. Even after his faction admitted defeat (the feud would begin again years later), Burnham still had many enemies.[32]

During this time he met "a fine, hard riding young Kansan, who I had met on an Indian raid and whose nerve I greatly admired."[33] The young Kansan, who had been swindled by an unscrupulous superintendent of mines, had a plan to rustle cattle and horses from the superintendent and sell them to Curly Bill (William Brocius), an outlaw with whom he had indirectly been in contact.[34] Both men were broke at the time, and the job sounded easy. But Burnham had always rejected the life of a thief and even as a wanted man, he did not view himself as a criminal.[35] Burnham began to see that even though he joined the feud to help his friends, he had been in the wrong, that "avenging only led to more vengeance and to even greater injustice than that suffered through the often unjustly administered laws of the land."[36]

Burnham decided to reject the offer of the young Kansan (who followed through with the plan and was later killed), and that he needed to leave the Tonto Basin.[29] Judge Aaron Hackney, editor of the local Arizona Silver Belt newspaper and a friend, helped him escape to Tombstone, Arizona with the assistance of Neil McLeod. He was a well-known prizefighter in Tombstone and one of the most successful smugglers along the Arizona–Mexico frontier.[29] The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral had occurred only a few months earlier, but as Tombstone was a boomtown attracting new silver miners from all parts, it was an ideal location to hide out.[29] Burnham assumed several aliases and occasionally he delivered messages for McLeod and his smuggler partners in Sonora, Mexico. From McLeod, he learned many valuable tricks for avoiding detection, passing coded messages, and throwing off pursuers.[29]

Burnham eventually went back to California to attend high school, but he never graduated.[15] He returned to Arizona and was appointed Deputy Sheriff of Pinal County, but he soon went back to herding cattle and prospecting. After he went to Prescott, Iowa to visit his childhood sweetheart Blanche, the two were married on February 6, 1884. He was 23 years old.[15] He and Blanche settled down soon after in Pasadena, California, to tend to an orange grove but soon Burnham returned to prospecting and scouting.[37] Active as a Freemason, he rose to become a Thirty-Second Degree Mason of the Scottish Rite.[15][38]

During the 1880s, sections of the American press popularized the notion that the West had been won and there was nothing left to conquer in the United States. The time when great scouts like Kit Carson, Daniel Boone, and Davy Crockett could explore and master the wild and uncharted Western territories was coming to a close. Contemporary scouts such as Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok, and Texas Jack Omohundro, were leaving the old West to become entertainers, and they battled great Native American chiefs like Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, and Geronimo only in Wild West Shows. In 1890 the United States Census Bureau formally closed the American frontier, ending the system under which land in the Western territories had been sold cheaply to pioneers.[39] As a "soldier of fortune", as Richard Harding Davis later called him,[40] Burnham began to look elsewhere for the next undeveloped frontier, feeling that the American West was becoming tame and unchallenging. When he heard of the work of Cecil Rhodes and his pioneers in southern Africa, who were working to build a railway across Africa from Cape to Cairo, Burnham sold what little he owned. In 1893 with his wife and young son, he set sail for Durban in South Africa, intending to join Rhodes's pioneers in Matabeleland and Mashonaland.[41]

Military career

First Matabele War

Burnham was trekking the 1,000 miles (1,609km) north from Durban to Matabeleland with his wife and son, an American buckboard and six donkeys when war broke out between Rhodes's British South Africa Company and the Matabele (or Ndebele)[n 3] King Lobengula in late 1893.[44] He signed up to scout for the Company immediately on reaching Matabeleland, and joined the fighting. Leander Starr Jameson, the Company's Chief Magistrate in Mashonaland, hoped to defeat the Matabele quickly by capturing Lobengula at his royal town of Bulawayo, and so sent Burnham and a small group of scouts ahead to report on the situation there. While on the outskirts of town they watched as the Matabele burned down and destroyed everything in sight. By the time the Company troops had arrived in force, Lobengula and his warriors had fled and there was little left of old Bulawayo. The Company then moved into the remains of Bulawayo, established a base, and sent out patrols to find Lobengula. The most famous of these patrols was the Shangani Patrol, led by Major Allan Wilson and the man he chose as his Chief of Scouts, Fred Burnham.[45]

Shangani Patrol

An 1895 sketch, portraying a scene from the Shangani Patrol episode. Burnham (left, on horse) kills a Matabele warrior.

Jameson sent a column of soldiers under Major Patrick Forbes to locate and capture Lobengula. The column camped on the south bank of the Shangani River about 25 miles (40km) north-east of the village of Lupane on the evening of December 3, 1893. The next day, late in the afternoon, a dozen men under the command of Major Wilson were sent across the river to patrol the area. The Wilson Patrol came across a group of Matabele women and children who claimed to know Lobengula's whereabouts. Burnham, who served as the lead scout of the Wilson Patrol, sensed a trap and advised Wilson to withdraw, but Wilson ordered his patrol to advance.[46]

Soon afterwards, the patrol found the king and Wilson sent a message back to the laager requesting reinforcements. Forbes, however, was unwilling to set off across the river in the dark, so he sent only 20 more men, under the command of Henry Borrow, to reinforce Wilson's patrol. Forbes intended to send the main body of troops and artillery across the river the following morning; however, the main column was ambushed by Matabele warriors and delayed. Wilson's patrol too came under attack, but the Shangani River had swollen and there was now no possibility of retreat. In desperation, Wilson sent Burnham and two other men, Pearl "Pete" Ingram (a Montana cowboy) and William Gooding (an Australian), to cross the Shangani River, find Forbes, and bring reinforcements. In spite of a shower of bullets and spears, the three made it to Forbes, but the battle raging there was just as intense as the one they had left, and there was no hope of anyone reaching Wilson in time. As Burnham loaded his rifle to beat back the Matabele warriors, he quietly said to Forbes, "I think I may say that we are the sole survivors of that party."[47] Wilson, Borrow, and their men were indeed surrounded by hundreds of Matabele warriors; escape was impossible, and all were killed.[46][48]

Colonial-era histories called this the Shangani Patrol, and hailed Wilson and Borrow as national heroes.[49] Their last stand together became a kind of national myth, as Lewis Gann writes, "a glorious memory, [Rhodesia's] own equivalent of the bloody Alamo massacre and Custer's Last Stand in the American West".[50] The version of events recorded by history is based on the accounts of Burnham, Ingram and Gooding, the Matabele present at the battle (particularly inDuna Mjaan), and the men of Forbes' column.[51][52][53][54][55] While all of the direct evidence given by eyewitnesses supports the findings of the Court of Inquiry, some historians and writers debate whether or not Burnham, Ingram and Gooding really were sent back by Wilson to fetch help, and suggest that they might have simply deserted when the battle got rough.[56] The earliest recording of this claim of desertion is long after the event in a letter written in 1935 by John Coghlan to a friend, John Carruthers, that "a very reliable man informed me that Wools-Sampson told him" that Gooding had confessed on his deathbed that he and the two Americans had not actually been despatched by Wilson, and had simply left on their own accord.[57] This double hearsay confession, coming from an anonymous source, is not mentioned in Gooding's 1899 obituary, which instead recounts the events as generally recorded.[58] Several well-known writers have used the Coghlan letter, as shaky as it is, as clearance to create hypothetical evidence in an attempt to challenge and revise the historical record.[59]

All of the officers and troopers of Forbes' column had high praise for Burnham's actions, and none reported any doubts about his conduct even decades later.[60] One member of the column, Trooper ME Weale, told the Rhodesia Herald in 1944 that once Commandant Piet Raaff took over command from the disgraced Major Forbes it was greatly due to Burnham's good scouting that the column managed to get away: "I have always felt that the honours were equally divided between these two men, to whom we owed our lives on that occasion."[60] For his service in the war, Burnham was presented the British South Africa Company Medal, a gold watch, and a share of a 300-acre (120ha) tract of land in Matabeleland. It was here that Burnham uncovered many artifacts in the huge granite ruins of the ancient civilization of Great Zimbabwe.[61] Matabeleland became part of the Company domain, which was formally named Rhodesia, after Rhodes, in 1895. Matabeleland and Mashonaland became collectively called Southern Rhodesia.[62]

In March 1896, the Matabele again rose up against the British South Africa Company administration in what became called the Second Matabele War or the First Chimurenga (liberation war). Mlimo, the Matabele spiritual leader, is credited with fomenting much of the anger that led to this confrontation. The colonists' defenses in Matabeleland were undermanned due to the ill-fated Jameson Raid into the South African Republic (or Transvaal), and in the first few months of the war alone hundreds of white settlers were killed. With few troops to support them, the settlers quickly built a laager in the centre of Bulawayo on their own and mounted patrols under such figures as Burnham, Robert Baden-Powell, and Frederick Selous. The Matabele retreated into their stronghold of the Matopos Hills near Bulawayo, a region that became the scene of the fiercest fighting between Matabele warriors and settler patrols.[71] It was also during this war that two scouts of very different backgrounds, Burnham and Baden-Powell, would first meet and discuss ideas for training youth that would eventually become the plan for the program and the code of honor for the Boy Scouts.[72][73]

Assassination of Mlimo

Burnham and Armstrong ride for Bulawayo after killing Mlimo, pursued by Matabele warriors.

The turning point in the war came when Burnham and Bonar Armstrong, a Company native commissioner, found their way through the Matopos Hills to a sacred cave not many miles from the Mangwe district, to a sanctuary then known only to the Matabele where Mlimo had been hiding.[74] Not far from the cave was a village (now gone) of about 100 huts filled with many warriors. The two men tethered their horses to a thicket and crawled on their bellies, screening their slow, cautious movements by means of branches held before them. Once inside the cave, they waited until Mlimo entered.[75] Mlimo was said to be about 60 years old, with very dark skin, sharp-featured; American news reports of the time described him as having a cruel, crafty look. Burnham and Armstrong waited until Mlimo entered the cave and started his dance of immunity, at which point Burnham shot Mlimo just below the heart, killing him.[75][76]

Burnham and Armstrong leapt over the dead Mlimo and ran down a trail toward their horses. The warriors in the village nearby picked up their arms and searched for the attackers; to distract them, Burnham set fire to some of their huts. The two men escaped and rode back to Bulawayo. Shortly after, Cecil Rhodes walked unarmed into the Matabele stronghold and made peace with the rebels, ending the Second Matabele War.[77][78]

Klondike Gold Rush

With the Matabele wars over, Burnham decided it was time to leave Africa and move on to other adventures. The family returned to California. Soon after, Fred traveled to Alaska and the Yukon to prospect in the Klondike Gold Rush, taking with him his eldest son Roderick, who was then 12 years old.[79] On hearing of the Spanish–American War, Burnham rushed home to volunteer his services, but the war had ended before he could get to the fighting.[80][81] Burnham returned to the Klondike having played no part in the war. Colonel Theodore Roosevelt regretted this as much as Burnham and paid him a great tribute in his book.[15]

The Second Boer War (October 1899 – May 1902) was fought between the British and two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State, partly the result of long-simmering strife between them. It was directly caused by each side's desire to control the lucrative Witwatersrand gold mines in the Transvaal.[84] Field Marshal Frederick Roberts, one of the British Army's most successful commanders of the 19th century, was appointed to take overall command of British forces, relieving General Redvers Buller, following a number of Boer successes in the early weeks of the war,[85] including the Siege of Mafeking, in which Baden-Powell, his small regiment of men, and the townspeople had been besieged by thousands of Boer troops since the conflict began. Roberts asked General Frederick Carrington, who had commanded the British forces in Matabeleland three years earlier, whom he should appoint as his Chief of Scouts in South Africa. Carrington had selected Burnham for this role and advised Roberts to do the same, describing Burnham as "the finest scout who ever scouted in Africa."[70]

Roberts sent for Burnham soon after arriving in South Africa on the RMS Dunottar Castle. The American scout was prospecting near Skagway, Alaska, when he received the following telegram in January 1900: "Lord Roberts appoints you on his personal staff as Chief of Scouts. If you accept, come at once the quickest way possible." Cape Town is at the opposite end of the globe from the Klondike, so Burnham left immediately. In an unusual step for a foreigner, Burnham received a command post from Roberts and the British Army rank of captain. Burnham reached the front just before the Battle of Paardeberg (February 1900). During the war, Burnham spent much time behind the Boer lines gathering information and blowing up railway bridges and tracks. He was captured twice (escaping both times),[86] and also temporarily disabled at one point by near-fatal wounds.[87]

Burnham was first captured during the fighting at Sanna's Post in the Orange Free State.[88] He gave himself up in order to obtain information on the enemy, which he did, and then he escaped from his guards and succeed in reaching British occupied Bloemfontein safely after two days and nights on the run.[89] The second time he was captured was while trying to warn a British column approaching Thaba' Nchu.[90] He came upon a group of Boers hiding on the banks of the river, toward which the British were even then advancing. Cut off from his own side, Burnham chose to signal the approaching soldiers even though it would expose him to capture. With a red kerchief, Burnham signaled the soldiers to turn back, but the column paid no attention and plodded steadily on into the ambush, while Burnham was at once taken prisoner. In the fight that followed, Burnham pretended to receive a wound in the knee, limping heavily and groaning with pain. He was placed in a wagon with the officers who really were wounded and who, in consequence, were not closely guarded. Later that evening, Burnham slipped over the driver's seat, dropped between the two wheels of the wagon, lowered himself, and fell between the legs of the oxen on his back in the road. In an instant, the wagon had passed over him safely, and while the dust still hung above the trail he rolled rapidly over into the ditch at the side of the road and lay motionless. It was four days before he was able to re-enter the British lines, during which time he had been lying in the open veld. He had subsisted on one biscuit and two handfuls of "mielies" (i.e., maize).[91][92]

I take this opportunity of thanking you for the valuable services you have rendered since you joined my headquarters at Paardeburg last February. I doubt if any other man in the force could have successfully carried out the perilous enterprises on which you have from time to time been engaged demanding as they did the training of a lifetime, combined with exceptional courage, caution, and powers of endurance.

—Lord Roberts, Commander of all British troops fighting in the Second Boer War (1900)[n 4]

On June 2, 1900, during the British march on Pretoria, Burnham was wounded, almost fatally. He was on a mission to cut off the flow of Boer gold and supplies to and from the sea and to halt the transportation of British prisoners of war out of the Pretoria. He scouted alone far to the east behind enemy lines trying to identify the best choke point along the Pretoria-Delagoa Bay railway line. He came upon an underpass of a railway bridge, an ideal location to disrupt the trains, but was immediately surrounded by a party of Boers. Burnham instantly fled and he had almost escaped when his horse was shot and fell, knocking him senseless and pinning him under its dead body. It was night and he was already far away when his horse was shot, so the Boer troopers apparently did not check to see if Burnham had been injured or killed. When he awoke hours later, Burnham was alone and in a dazed state having sustained serious injuries. In spite of his acute agony, Burnham proceeded to creep back to the railway, placed his charges, and blew up the line in two places. He then crept on his hands and knees to an empty animal enclosure to avoid capture and stayed there for two days and nights insensible. The next day, Burnham heard fighting in the distance so he crawled in that direction. By this time he was indifferent as to the source of the gunshots and by chance it was a British patrol that found him. Once in Pretoria the surgeons discovered that Burnham had torn apart his stomach muscles and burst a blood-vessel.[95] His very survival was due only to the fact that he had been without food or water for three days.[95][97]

Burnham's injuries were so serious that he was ordered to England by Lord Roberts. Two days before leaving for London, he was promoted to the rank of major, having received letters of commendation or congratulations from Baden-Powell, Rhodes, and Field Marshal Roberts.[98][99][100][101] On his arrival in England, Burnham was commanded to dine with Queen Victoria and to spend the night at Osborne House.[102] A few months later, after the Queen's death, King Edward VII personally presented Burnham with the Queen's South Africa Medal with four bars for the battles at Driefontein (March 10, 1900), Johannesburg (May 31, 1900), Paardeberg (February 17–26, 1900), and Cape Colony (October 11, 1899 – May 31, 1902), in addition to the cross of the Distinguished Service Order,[100][103] the second highest decoration in the British Army, for his heroism during the "victorious" march to Pretoria (June 2–5, 1900). The King also made his British Army appointment and rank permanent, in spite of his U.S. citizenship.[3][98] Burnham received the highest awards of any American who served in the Second Boer War.[86] Following his investiture, the British press hailed him as: "The King of Army Scouts".[3]

"Father of Scouting"

Burnham was already a celebrated scout when he first befriended Baden-Powell during the Second Matabele War, but the backgrounds of these two scouts was as strange a contrast as it is possible to imagine.[73] From his youth on the open plains, Burnham's earliest playmates were Sioux Indian boys and their ambitions pointed to excelling in the lore and arts of the trail and together they dreamed of some day becoming great scouts.[108] When Burnham was a teenager he supported himself by hunting game and making long rides for Western Union through the California deserts, his early mentors were wise old scouts of the American West, and by 19 he was a seasoned scout chasing and being chased by Apache.[109] The British scout he would later befriend and serve with in Matabeleland, Baden-Powell, was born in London and had graduated from Charterhouse, one of England's most famous public schools.[109] Baden-Powell developed an ambition to become a scout at an early age. He passed an exam that gave him an immediate commission into the British Army when he was 19, but it would take several years before he was engaged in any active service.[109] When the two men met in 1896, Baden-Powell was an army intelligence officer and a brilliant outdoorsman who had organized a small scouting section in his regiment, written a book called Reconnaissance and Scouting (1884)[110] and served in India, Afghanistan, Natal and Ashanti. Burnham, meanwhile, was General Carrington's Chief of Scouts.[111]

Frederick Russell Burnham: Explorer, discoverer, cowboy, and Scout. Native American, he served as chief of scouts in the Boer War, an intimate friend of Lord Baden-Powell. It was on some of his exploits demanding great courage, alertness, skill in surmounting the perils of the out-of-doors, that the founder of Scouting based some of the activities of the Boy Scout program. As an honorary Scout of the Boy Scouts of America, he has served as an inspiration to the youth of the Nation and is the embodiment of the qualities of the ideal Scout.

During the siege of Bulawayo, these two men rode many times into the Matopos Hills on patrol, and it was in these hills that Burnham first introduced Baden-Powell to the ways and methods of the Native Americans, and taught him "woodcraft" (better known today as Scoutcraft). Baden-Powell had written at length about reconnaissance and tracking, but from Burnham he learned many new dimensions such as how to travel in wild country without either a compass or map, how to discover nearby dangers by observing animals, and the many techniques for finding potable water.[113] So impressed was Baden-Powell by Burnham's Scouting spirit that he closely listened to all he had to tell.[114] It was also here that Baden-Powell began to wear his signature Stetsoncampaign hat and neckerchief, like those worn by Burnham, for the first time.[115] Both men recognized that wars were changing markedly and that the British Army needed to adapt. During their joint scouting missions, Baden-Powell and Burnham discussed the concept of a broad training program in woodcraft for young men, rich in exploration, tracking, fieldcraft, and self-reliance. In Africa, no scout embodied these traits more than Burnham.[116]

In his first scouting handbook, Aids to Scouting (1899),[117] Baden-Powell published many of the lessons he learned from Burnham and this book was later used by boys' groups as a guide to outdoor fun.[118] At the urging of several youth leaders, Baden-Powell decided to adapt his scouting handbook specifically to training boys.[119] While Baden-Powell went on to refine the concept of Scouting, publish Scouting for Boys (1908),[120] and become the founder of the international Scouting movement, Burnham has been called the movement's father.[121][122]James E. West, Chief Scout Executive for the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), summarized Burnham's historical relevance to Scouting: "There is an especial significance for those of us in Scouting in this man's list, for he was engaged for this work by Lord Baden Powell, who was then connected with the British Army in Africa, and who had unbounded admiration for the scouting methods of Frederick Burnham. So these two pioneers, each of whom was to have such immeasurable influence in restoring the old traditions of American youth, met in Africa, years before the Scouting movement was ever thought of."[72]

Burnham later became close friends with others involved in the Scouting movement in the United States, such as Theodore Roosevelt, the Chief Scout Citizen, and Gifford Pinchot, the Chief Scout Forester, and E. B. DeGroot, BSA Scout Executive of Los Angeles.[123][124][125] DeGroot said of Burnham: "Here is the sufficient and heroic figure, model and living example, who inspired and gave Baden-Powell the plan for the program and the code of honor of Scouting for Boys."[126] With assistance from Baden-Powell, the BSA published his biography: He-who-sees-in-the-dark; the Boys' Story of Frederick Burnham, the American Scout.[127] The BSA made Burnham an Honorary Scout in 1927,[128] and for his noteworthy and extraordinary service to the Scouting movement, Burnham was bestowed the highest commendation given by the BSA, the Silver Buffalo Award, in 1936.[129] Throughout his life he remained active in Scouting at both the regional and the national level in the United States and he corresponded regularly with Baden-Powell on Scouting topics.[130][131]

Burnham and Baden-Powell remained close friends for their long lives. Burnham called Baden-Powell a "wonderfully able scout",[132] and nicknamed him "Sherlock Holmes."[133] Baden-Powell considered Burnham to be "the greatest scout alive."[134] The seal on the Burnham–Baden-Powell letters at Yale and Stanford expired in 2000 and the true depth of their friendship and love of Scouting has again been revealed.[135] In 1931, Burnham read the speech dedicating Mount Baden-Powell, California,[136][137] to his old Scouting friend.[138] Their friendship, and equal status in the world of Scouting and conservation, was honored in 1951 with the dedication of the adjoining peak as Mount Burnham.[130][139]

Later life

Post war

After convalescing, Burnham became the London office manager for the Wa Syndicate, a commercial body with interests in the Gold Coast and neighboring territories in West Africa. He led the Wa Syndicate's 1901 expedition through the Gold Coast and the Upper Volta, looking for minerals and ways to improve river navigation.[143] Between 1902 and 1904 he was employed by the East Africa Syndicate, for which he led a vast mineral prospecting expedition in the East Africa Protectorate (Kenya). Traveling extensively in the area around Lake Rudolf (now Lake Turkana), he discovered a huge soda lake.[102][144]

Mexico

Burnham returned to North America and for the next few years became associated with the Yaqui River irrigation project in Mexico. While investigating the Yaqui valley for mineral and agricultural resources, Burnham reasoned that a dam could provide year-round water to rich alluvial soil in the valley; turning the region into one of the garden spots of the world and generate much needed electricity. He purchased water rights and some 300 acres (1.2km2) of land in this region and contacted an old friend from his time in Africa, John Hays Hammond, who conducted his own studies and then purchased an additional 900,000 acres (3,600km2) of this land—an area the size of Rhode Island.[145] Burnham together with Charles Frederick Holder made important archaeological discoveries of Mayan civilization in this region, including the Esperanza Stone.[146][147]

In 1909, William Howard Taft and Porfirio Díaz planned a summit in El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, an historic first meeting between a U.S. president and a Mexican president and also the first time an American president would cross the border into Mexico.[148] But tensions rose on both sides of the border, including threats of assassination, so the Texas Rangers, 4,000 U.S. and Mexican troops, U.S. Secret Service agents, FBI agents and U.S. marshals were all called in to provide security.[149] Burnham was put in charge of a 250 private security detail hired by Hammond, who in addition to owning large investments in Mexico was a close friend of Taft from Yale and a U.S. Vice-Presidential candidate in 1908.[150][151] On October 16, the day of the summit, Burnham and Private C.R. Moore, a Texas Ranger, discovered a man holding a concealed palm pistol standing at the El Paso Chamber of Commerce building along the procession route.[152][153] Burnham and Moore captured and disarmed the assassin within only a few feet of Taft and Díaz.[154]

After the Taft-Díaz summit, Burnham led a team of 500 men in guarding mining properties owned by Hammond, J. P. Morgan, and the Guggenheims in the Mexican state of Sonora.[155] Just as the irrigation and mining projects were nearing completion in 1912, a long series of Mexican revolutions began. The final blow to these efforts came in 1917 when Mexico passed laws prohibiting the sale of land to foreigners. Burnham and Hammond carried their properties until 1930 and then sold them to the Mexican government.[156]

World War I

I know Burnham. He is a scout and a hunter of courage and ability, a man totally without fear, a sure shot, and a fighter. He is the ideal scout, and when enlisted in the military service of any country he is bound to be of the greatest benefit.

During this period, Burnham was one of the 18 officers selected by former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt to raise a volunteer infantry division for service in France in 1917 shortly after the United States entered the war.[158] A plan to raise volunteer soldiers from the Western U.S. came out of a meeting of the New York-based Rocky Mountain Club and Burnham was put in charge of both the general organization and recruitment.[159] Congress gave Roosevelt the authority to raise up to four divisions similar to the Rough Riders of 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry Regiment and to the British Army 25th (Frontiersmen) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers; however, as Commander-in-chief, President Woodrow Wilson refused to make use of Roosevelt's volunteers.[160][159]

Roosevelt had been an outspoken critic of Wilson's neutrality policies, so even though Roosevelt had made several attempts to come to an agreement with Wilson, the President was unwilling to accept any compromise. In an astute political maneuver, Wilson announced to the press that he would not send Roosevelt and his volunteers to France, but instead would send an American Expeditionary Force under the command of General John Pershing.[161] Roosevelt was left with no option except to disband the volunteers. He never forgave Wilson, and quickly published The Foes Of Our Own Household, a harsh indictment of the sitting president.[162] These relentless attacks helped the Republicans win control of Congress in 1918. Roosevelt might have been a serious candidate for president in 1920 had he not died in 1919.[163]

To my friendly enemy, Major Frederick Russell Burnham, the greatest scout of the world, whose eyes were that of an Empire. I once craved the honour of killing him, but failing that, I extend my heartiest admiration.

During World War I, Burnham was living in California and was active in counterespionage for Britain.[165] Much of it involved a famous Boer spy, Captain Fritz Joubert Duquesne, who became a German spy in both World Wars and claimed to have killed Field Marshal Kitchener while en route to meet with the Russians.[166] During the Second Boer War, Burnham and Duquesne were each under orders to assassinate the other, but it was not until 1910 that the two men first met while both were in Washington, D.C., separately lobbying Congress to pass a bill in favor of the importation of African game animals into the United States (H.R. 23621).[167] Duquesne was twice arrested by the FBI and in 1942 he and 32 other Nazi agents (the Duquesne Spy Ring) were jailed for espionage in the largest spy ring conviction in U.S. history.[168]

Oil wealth

Fred and Rod Burnham, ca. 1930

Although Burnham had lived all over the world, he never had a great deal of wealth to show for his efforts. It was not until he returned to California, the place of his youth, that he found great affluence. In November 1923, he struck oil in Dominguez Hills, near Carson, California.[169] In a field that covered just two square miles, over 150 wells from Union Oil were soon producing 37,000 barrels a day, with 10,000 barrels a day going to the Burnham Exploration Company, a syndicate formed in 1919 between Frederick Burnham, his son Roderick, John Hayes Hammond, and his son Harris Hammond.[170][171] In the first 10 years of operation, the Burnham Exploration Company paid out $10.2 million in dividends.[172] The spot where Burnham found oil was land where "as a small boy he used to graze cattle, and shoot game which he sold to the neighboring mining districts to support his widowed mother and infant brother."[172] Many years after the oil was depleted, the land near the Dominguez field was re-developed and became the site of the California State University, Dominguez Hills.[173] In 2010, Occidental Petroleum Corporation expressed interest in redeveloping the former Dominguez oil field using modern extraction technologies.[174]

Conservation

An avid conservationist and hunter, Burnham supported the early conservation programs of his friends Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot. He and his associate John Hayes Hammond led novel game expeditions to Africa with the goal of finding large animals such as Giant Eland, hippopotamus, zebra, and various bird species that might be bred in the United States and become game for future American sportsmen. Burnham, Hammond, and Duquesne appeared several times before the House Committee on Agriculture to ask for help in importing large African animals.[175][176] In 1914, he helped establish the Wild Life Protective League of America, Department of Southern California, and served as its first Secretary.[177]

In 1936, Burnham enlisted the Arizona Boy Scouts in a campaign to save the Desert Bighorn Sheep from probable extinction. Several other prominent Arizonans and environmental groups joined the movement and a "save the bighorns" poster contest was started in schools throughout the state. Burnham provided prizes and appeared in store windows from one end of Arizona to the other. The contest-winning bighorn emblem was made into neckerchief slides for the 10,000 Boy Scouts, and talks and dramatizations were given at school assemblies and on radio. On January 18, 1939, over 1.5 million acres (6,100 km2) were set aside in Arizona to establish the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge and the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, and Burnham gave the dedication speech.[183][184]

Personal life

At 5ft 4in (1.62m), Burnham was slight, but he was also muscular and bronzed, with a finely formed square jaw. He had a boyish appearance which he used to his advantage on numerous occasions. His most noticeable feature was his steady, grey-blue eyes. Contemporary reports had it that Burnham's gaze appeared to never leave those of the person he was looking at, and yet somehow could simultaneously monitor all the details of the physical surroundings. It was also said that Burnham's eyes possessed a far-away look such as those acquired by people whose occupation has caused them to watch continually at sea or on great plains.[185][186][187]

Burnham would not smoke and seldom drank alcohol, fearing these habits would injure the acuteness of his sense of smell. He found ways to train himself in mental patience, took power naps instead of indulging in periods of long sleep, and drank very little liquid. He trained himself to accept these abstinences in order to endure the most appalling fatigues, hunger, thirst, and wounds, so that when scouting or traveling where there was no water, he might still be able to exist. On more than one occasion he survived in environments where others would have died, or were in fact dying, of exhaustion. He was quiet-mannered and courteous, according to contemporaries. Their reports describe a man who was neither shy nor self-conscious, who was extremely modest, and who seldom spoke of his many adventures.[188][187]

Burnham died of heart failure at the age of 86, on September 1, 1947 at his home in Santa Barbara, California. He was buried at a private ceremony at Three Rivers, California, near his old cattle ranch, La Cuesta.[189] His memorial stone was designed by his only surviving child, Roderick. Also buried at Three Rivers cemetery are his first wife, Blanche, several members of the Blick family who had also pioneered 1890s Rhodesia with Burnham, Roderick, his granddaughter Martha Burnham Burleigh, and "Pete" Ingram, the Montana cowboy who had survived the Shangani Patrol massacre along with Burnham.[189][190]

Family

Blanche Blick Burnham in Bulawayo, Rhodesia, 1896

Burnham's wife of 55 years, Blanche (February 25, 1862 – December 22, 1939) of Nevada, Iowa, accompanied him in very primitive conditions through many travels in both the Southwest United States and southern Africa. Together they had three children, all of whom spent their early youth in Africa. In the early years, she watched over the children and the pack animals, and she always kept a rifle nearby. In the dark of night, she used her rifle many times against lions and hyena and, during the Siege of Bulawayo, against Matabele warriors. Several members of the Blick family joined the Burnhams in Rhodesia, moved with them to England, and returned to the United States with the Burnhams to live near Three Rivers, California. When Burnham Exploration Company struck it rich in 1923, the Burnhams moved to a mansion built by Pasadena architect Joseph Blick, his brother-in-law, in a new housing development then known as Hollywoodland (a name later shortened to "Hollywood") and took many trips around the world in high style.[191] In 1939, Blanche suffered a stroke. She died a month later and was buried in the Three Rivers Cemetery.[192][193]

To the Memory of the Child: Nada Burnham, who "bound all to her" and, while her father cut his way through the hordes of the Ingobo Regiment, perished of the hardships of war at Buluwayo on 19 May 1896, I dedicate these tales—and more particularly the last, that of a Faith which triumphed over savagery and death.

Nada (May 1894 – May 19, 1896), Burnham's daughter, was the first white child born in Bulawayo; she died of fever and starvation during the town's siege. She was buried three days later in the town's Pioneer Cemetery, plot No.144. Nada is the Zulu word for lily and she was named after the heroine in Sir H. Rider Haggard's Zulu tale, Nada the Lily (1892). Three of Haggard's books are dedicated to Burnham's daughter, Nada: The Wizard (1896), Elissa: The Doom of Zimbabwe (1899), and Black Heart and White Heart: A Zulu Idyll (1900).[187][201]

Burnham's youngest son, Bruce B. Burnham (1897 – October 3, 1905),[202] was staying with his parents in London when he accidentally drowned in the River Thames.[203][204] His brother, Roderick, was in California the night Bruce died, yet claimed to know from a dream exactly what had happened. Roderick awoke screaming and rushed to tell his grandmother about his nightmare.[203] The next morning, a cable arrived with the news of Bruce's death.[203]

Howard Burnham, brother

His brother Howard Burnham (1870–1918), born shortly before the family moved to Los Angeles, lost one leg at the age of 14 and suffered from tuberculosis. During his teenage years he lived with Fred in California and learned from his brother the art of Scoutcraft, how to shoot, and how to ride the range, all in spite of his wooden leg.[205] Howard moved to Africa, became a mining engineer in the Johannesburg gold mines, and later wrote a text book on Modern Mine Valuation.[206] He traveled the world and for a time teamed up with Fred on Yaqui River irrigation project in Mexico.[156] During World War I, Howard worked as a spy for the French government, operating behind enemy lines in southwest Germany.[207] Throughout the war he used his wooden leg to conceal tools he needed for spying.[208] From his death bed, Howard returned to France via Switzerland and shared his vital data and secrets with the French government: the Germans were not opening a new front in the Alps and there was no need to move allied troops away from the Western Front.[209] Howard was buried at Cannes, France, leaving behind his wife and four children.[210] He had been named after his second cousin, Lieutenant Howard Mather Burnham who was killed in action in the American Civil War.[211]

In 1943, at 83 years of age, Burnham married his much younger typist, Ilo K. Willits Burnham (June 20, 1894 – August 28, 1982).[144][216] The couple sold their mansion and moved to Santa Barbara in 1946.[217][218]

In late 1958, Ernest Hemingway acquired the rights to produce a film version of Burnham's memoirs, Scouting on Two Continents.[225]CBS immediately contracted Hemingway to produce the film for television, with Gary Cooper expressing considerable interest in playing the part of Burnham.[226] Hemingway was already behind schedule with other commitments, however, and no work had been done on the movie when he committed suicide in July 1961.[227]

Another epic film, On My Honor, was conceived and begun by Cecil B. DeMille. It was to document the founding of the Scouting movement but was left unfinished after DeMille died in January 1959. The screenplay, by Jesse Lasky, Jr., focused on Baden-Powell, Burnham and other pioneers who were to have a major influence on Scouting. After DeMille's death, associate producer Henry Wilcoxon continued to work on the film until 1962, hiring Sydney Box to assist with the script. Starting in 2001, producers Jerry Molen and Robert Starling began work to finish DeMille's project, using an updated screenplay by Starling based on the earlier work of Lasky and Box.[228][229]

In June 2014, RatPac Entertainment and Class 5 Films acquired the non-fiction article American Hippopotamus, by Jon Mooallem, about the meat shortage in the U.S. in 1910 and the attempts made by Burnham, Duquesne and Congressman Robert Broussard to import hippopotamuses into the Louisiana bayous and to convince Americans to eat them. The movie will highlight the Burnham - Duquesne rivalry. Edward Norton, William Migliore and Brett Ratner will produce this feature film.[230]

Tributes

Burnham in real life is more interesting than any of my heroes of romance!

Sir H. Rider Haggard, inventor of the lost world literary genre, was heavily influenced by the larger than life adventures of his friend Burnham as he penned his fictional hero Allan Quatermain. There are many similarities between these two African explorers: both sought and discovered ancient treasures and civilizations, both battled large wild animals and native peoples, both were renowned for their ability to track, even at night, and both had similar nicknames: Quatermain was dubbed "Watcher-by-Night", while Burnham was called "He-who-sees-in-the-dark".[67]

To commemorate 100 years of Scouting, the BSA issued 100 bronze coins in 2007 featuring Burnham and Baden-Powell. One side shows the bust of Burnham and is inscribed: "Major Frederick Russell Burnham", "Father of Scouting". Other side shows the bust of Baden-Powell and is inscribed: "Col. Robert Baden-Powell", "Founder of Scouting". The coins were distributed by the White Eagle District.[233] Years earlier, the BSA helped create the Major Burnham Bowling Trophy, an annual bowling event sponsored by Union Oil and held in California.[234][235]Serbelodon burnhami, an extinct gomphothere (Shovel-Tusker elephant) from California, was named after Burnham. It was discovered by John C. Blick, the brother of Burnham's first wife.[236]

— (1930). "The howl for cheap Mexican labor". In Grant, Madison; Charles Stewart, Davison. The Alien in Our Midst; Or, "Selling Our Birthright for a Mess of Pottage"; the Written Views of a Number of Americans (Present and Former) on Immigration and Its Results. New York: Galton Publishing. pp.44–48. OCLC3040493.

— (1931). "Scouting Against the Apache". In West, James E. The Boy Scout's Book of True Adventure: their own story of famous exploits and adventures told by honorary scouts. New York: Putman. OCLC8484128.

Notes

Footnotes

↑ According to McClintock and other sources, Burnham's father was a Congregational minister;[6][8][9] Burnham latterly wrote of his father as a "Presbyterian preacher".[7] In Edwin Burnham's time, Presbyterians and Congregationalists cooperated in establishing many new congregations in the Midwestern United States. "Presbygationalists", as these congregations were sometimes known, were allowed to choose either a Presbyterian or a Congregational pastor.[10]

↑ According to Lott, Burnham was drawn into the conflict by his association with the Fred Wells and his family;[28] Money states that it was the Gordon Family.[29] In his memoirs, Scouting on Two Continents, Burnham never gives the name of the family,[30] but in the undated manuscript he mentions his friendship with young Tommy Gordon and his family from Globe.[31]

↑ The Ndebele people's term for themselves in their own language is amaNdebele (the prefix ama- indicating the plural form of the singular Ndebele), whence comes a term commonly used in other languages, including English: "Matabele". Their language is called isiNdebele, generally rendered "Sindebele" in English. The area they have inhabited since their arrival from Zululand in the early 1800s is called Matabeleland. In historiographical terms, "Matabele" is retained in the names of the First and Second Matabele Wars, the former of which the Shangani Patrol was a part.[43] For clarity, consistency and ease of reading, this article uses the term "Matabele" to refer to the people, and calls their language "Sindebele".

↑ Hales, Van Wyk, and Britt all provide slight variations on this quote.[93][94][95] The quote cited here comes from a facsimile of a handwritten letter from Lord Roberts to Major Burnham. The complete text of the letter is as follows: "Army Head Quarters, Pretoria, June 25, 1900. Dear Major Burnham, As you are about to return to Europe, I take this opportunity of thanking you for the valuable service you have performed since you joined my head quarters at Paaderburg last February. I doubt if any other man in the force could have successfully carried out the perilous enterprises on which you have from time to time been engaged demanding as they did the training of a lifetime, combined with exceptional courage, caution and powers of endurance. I was sorry to hear of the serious accident you met with in your last successful attempt on the enemy's line of railway, and I ____ to hear that you are quite well again. Believe me your _____ Roberts"[96]

Related Research Articles

Inkos'uLobengula Khumalo (1845–1894) was the second and last king of the Northern Ndebele people. Both names, in the isiNdebele language, mean "the men of the long shields", a reference to the Ndebele warriors' use of the Zulu shield and spear.

The Siege of Mafeking was a 217-day siege battle for the town of Mafeking in South Africa during the Second Boer War from October 1899 to May 1900. The siege received considerable attention as Lord Edward Cecil, the son of the British prime minister, was in the besieged town, as also was Lady Sarah Wilson, a daughter of the Duke of Marlborough and aunt of Winston Churchill. The siege turned the British commander, Colonel Robert Baden-Powell, into a national hero. The Relief of Mafeking, while of little military significance, was a morale boost for the struggling British.

Modern-day Matabeleland is a region in Zimbabwe divided into three provinces: Matabeleland North, Bulawayo and Matabeleland South. These provinces are in the west and south-west of Zimbabwe, between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers. The region is named after its inhabitants, the Ndebele people. Other ethnic groups who inhabit parts of Matabeleland include the Tonga, Kalanga, Venda, Nambia, Sotho, Tswana and Khoisan. As of August 2012, according to the Zimbabwean national statistics agency ZIMSAT, the southern part of the region had 683,893 people, comprising 326,697 males and 356,926 females, with an average size household of 4.4 in an area of 54,172 square kilometres (20,916 sq mi). As for the Matabeleland Northern Province, it had a total population of 749,017 people out of the population of Zimbabwe of 13,061,239. The proportion of males and females was 48 and 52 percent respectively within an area of just over 75,017 square kilometres (28,964 sq mi). The remaining Bulawayo province had a population of 653,337 in an area of 1,706.8 square kilometres (659.0 sq mi). Thus the region has a combined population of 2,086,247 in an area of just over 130,000 square kilometres (50,000 sq mi) and that is just over the size of England. The major city is Bulawayo, other notable towns are Plumtree and Hwange. The land is particularly fertile but dry. This area has important gold deposits. Industries include gold and other mineral mines, and engineering. There has been a decline in the industries in this region as water is in short supply. Promises by the government to draw water for the region through the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project have not been carried out. The region is allegedly marginalised by the government.

A campaign hat is a broad-brimmed felt or straw hat, with a high crown, pinched symmetrically at the four corners.

The Northern Ndebele people are a Bantu nation and ethnic group in Southern Africa, who share a common Ndebele culture and Ndebele language. The Northern Ndebele were historically referred to as the Matabele which was a seSotho corruption of 'Ndebele'. Their history began when a Zulu chiefdom split from King Shaka in the early 19th century under the leadership of Mzilikazi, a former chief in his kingdom and ally. Under his command the disgruntled Zulus went on to conquer and rule the chiefdoms of the Southern Ndebele. This was where the name and identity of the eventual kingdom was adopted.

The Scout Association of Zimbabwe is a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement. Scouting in Zimbabwe shares history with Malaŵi and Zambia, with which it was linked for decades.

Scoutcraft is a term used to cover a variety of woodcraft knowledge and skills required by people seeking to venture into wild country and sustain themselves independently. The term has been adopted by Scouting organizations to reflect skills and knowledge which are felt to be a core part of the various programs, alongside community and spirituality. Skills commonly included are camping, cooking, first aid, wilderness survival, orienteering and pioneering.

Will Hutchins is an American actor most noted for playing the lead role of the young lawyer from the Oklahoma Territory, Tom Brewster, in sixty-nine episodes of the Warner Bros. Western television series Sugarfoot, which aired on ABC from 1957 to 1961. Only five episodes aired in 1961, including the series finale on April 17.

Russell Adam Burnham, is an American business owner and U.S. Army veteran. He is the great-grandson of Frederick Russell Burnham (1861–1947), recipient of the Distinguished Service Order, and famous American scout and world-traveling adventurer who helped inspire the founding of the international Scouting Movement. Burnham was recognized as the 2003 U.S. Army Soldier of the Year, 2007 U.S. Army Medical Corps NCO of the Year, and is an Eagle Scout.

The First Matabele War was fought between 1893 and 1894 in modern day Zimbabwe. It pitted the British South Africa Company against the Ndebele (Matabele) Kingdom. Lobengula, king of the Ndebele, had tried to avoid outright war with the company's pioneers because he and his advisors were mindful of the destructive power of European-produced weapons on traditional Matabele impis attacking in massed ranks. Lobengula had 80,000 spearmen and 20,000 riflemen, armed with Martini-Henry rifles, which were modern arms at that time. However, poor training meant that these were not used effectively. The British South Africa Company had no more than 750 troops in the British South Africa Company's Police, with an undetermined number of possible colonial volunteers and an additional 700 Tswana (Bechuana) allies. Cecil Rhodes, who was Prime Minister of the Cape Colony and Leander Starr Jameson, the Administrator of Mashonaland also tried to avoid war to prevent loss of confidence in the future of the territory. Matters came to a head when Lobengula approved a raid to forcibly extract tribute from a Mashona chief in the district of the town of Fort Victoria, which inevitably led to a clash with the Company.

The Second Matabele War, also known as the Matabeleland Rebellion or part of what is now known in Zimbabwe as the First Chimurenga, was fought between 1896 and 1897 in the area then known as Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. It pitted the British South Africa Company against the Matabele people, which led to conflict with the Shona people in the rest of Rhodesia.

Allan Wilson was an officer in the Victoria Volunteers. He is best known for his leadership of the Shangani Patrol in the First Matabele War. His death fighting overwhelming odds made him a national hero in Britain and Rhodesia.

Patrick William Forbes was a leader of the paramilitary British South Africa Police, who commanded a force that invaded Matabeland in the First Matabele War.

The birth of the first white child is a widely used concept to mark the establishment of a European colony in the New World, especially in the historiography of the United States. In Texas, the birth of the first white child is recorded in local histories on the county level.

The British South Africa Company Medal (1890–97). In 1896, Queen Victoria sanctioned the issue by the British South Africa Company of a medal to troops who had been engaged in the First Matabele War. In 1897, the award was extended to those engaged in the two campaigns of the Second Matabele War, namely Rhodesia (1896) and Mashonaland (1897). The three medals are the same except for name of the campaign for which the medal was issued, inscribed on the reverse.

The Shangani is a river in Zimbabwe that starts near Gweru, Gweru River being one of its main tributaries' and goes through Midlands and Matabeleland North provinces.

Shangani Patrol is a war film based upon the non-fiction book A Time to Die by Robert Cary (1968), and the historical accounts of the Shangani Patrol, with Brian O'Shaughnessy as Major Allan Wilson and Will Hutchins as the lead Scout Frederick Russell Burnham. Also includes the song "Shangani Patrol" by Nick Taylor.

The Shangani Patrol was a 34-soldier unit of the British South Africa Company that in 1893 was ambushed and annihilated by more than 3,000 Matabele warriors in Rhodesia, during the First Matabele War. Headed by Major Allan Wilson, the patrol was attacked just north of the Shangani River in Matabeleland, Rhodesia. Its dramatic last stand, sometimes called "Wilson's Last Stand", achieved a prominent place in the British public imagination and, subsequently, in Rhodesian history, similarly to events such as the Battle of Shiroyama in Japan, the Battle of the Alamo in Texas and the Greeks' last stand at Thermopylae.

Major Wilson's Last Stand is an 1899 British silent short war film based upon the historical accounts of the Shangani Patrol. The film was adapted from Savage South Africa, a stage show depicting scenes from both the First Matabele War and the Second Matabele War which opened at the Empress Theatre, Earls Courte, on 8 May 1899. It was taken on the field by Joseph Rosenthal for the Warwick Trading Co., Ltd. Copies of this short film originally sold for £3.

Burnham, Roderick Henry (1884). Genealogical Records of Thomas Burnham, the Emigrant, who was Among the Early Settlers at Hartford, Connecticut, U.S. America, and His Descendants. Hartford, Connecticut: Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co.

Lott, Jack (1981). "Chapter 8. The Making of a Hero: Burnham in the Tonto Basin". In Boddington, Craig. America— The Men and Their Guns That Made Her Great. Los Angeles, California: Petersen Publishing. ISBN978-0-8227-3022-4.

West, James E.; Lamb, Peter O. (1932). He-who-sees-in-the-dark; the Boys' Story of Frederick Burnham, the American Scout. illustrated by Lord Baden-Powell. New York: Brewer, Warren and Putnam; Boy Scouts of America.

West, James E. (1937). 10108 H.doc.18. Washington, D.C.: United States Congress, House Committee on Education.

"Burnham's Services Brought to the Attention of Parliament: He Maintains His Well-known Modesty. His Injuries Received in Africa. Now Living in a London Suburb". The Los Angeles Times. March 2, 1902. ISSN0458-3035.